Nutella Monkey Bread

Tender brioche nuggets of dough filled with Nutella

Forgive me for not sending out this recipe sooner. It’s been a week, as you all know and have experienced.

I’ve been too overwhelmed by rage at senators and government officials turned into zombie fat cats by NRA money. I’ve been too concerned about the newest set of families impacted by gun violence, and the sickening knowledge that more brutally murdered schoolchildren will not change the votes of elected leaders. And I have seethed about the mental harm done to all the kids in this country who’ve grown up with active shooter drills—drills that were put in place without a thought for the lasting anxiety they would cause.

I started writing this substack on Monday AM. At the time I was giddy with my monkey bread and happy to ponder all the different possibilities and incarnations both sweet and savory I could create with the basic brioche dough used in this recipe.

And here it is, Friday, and I’m only just popping this into your mailboxes. It comes to you with my apologies, and my hope that maybe you’ll find the process of making, filling and rolling your own dough cathartic in some way. We need to take care of ourselves so we can fight for common sense gun laws. Election Day is coming.

Monkey bread, for those who’ve led a sheltered life, is a sweet bread made up of bite-size balls of brioche dough (some folks use canned biscuit dough as a shortcut), typically rolled in cinnamon-sugar, piled into a Bundt pan, drizzled with caramel sauce and once baked, iced. Eager eaters are then meant to pull sugary nuggets of dough off to enjoy one-by-one All told, it’s a sticky, sweet, more-ish event.

My monkey bread, even with the addition of Nutella, is much less sweet. For one, the brioche dough base is barely sweetened. There is no caramel-like syrup and no icing at the end. There’s a time and a place for everything. This isn’t it.

Also: I’ve begun a love affair with the brioche-like dough the monkey bread is made from. You know what the beginning of a relationship is like, when a chance encounter turns into a whirlwind affair. You can’t stop thinking about them. You spend as much time as possible together, wrapped around each other: entwined. Every meal is spent in each other’s presence. You daydream of the future, and the unique possibilities that your union will bring.

I’m sure you understand.

In other words: There will be more monkey bread recipes in our future.

Tomorrow I will post one of my savory monkey bread incarnations that features garlic, cheese, more cheese and pesto. This monkey bread will make you the star of any Memorial Day BBQ to which you are invited. It may make you happier if you haven’t been invited anywhere and then have no reason to share.

Monkey bread can be a bit time-consuming. There is yeast dough to rise. Dough to be cut, filled and shaped into balls, and those to be rolled in butter and cinnamon-sugar-cocoa. It’s all rather methodical and soothing, tho. Watch an episode of “Our Flag Means Death,” or “What We Do in the Shadows,” and the time will fly by.

I’ll post a how-to video shortly, but in the meantime, words will have to suffice. Questions, thoughts and new ideas for monkey breads in the comments, please!

I made monkey bread to go along with this week’s Secret Life of Cookies podcast conversation with Professor John Frater, an infectious disease specialist at Oxford, who was my guest this week to talk about, yup, monkeypox. I hope you’ll give it a listen. Considering the topics, we actually had quite an enjoyable—and definitely interesting—conversation. You can listen to it here:

Nutella-Filled Monkey Bread

What You’ll Need:

• A little patience

• 1 1/2 cups warm whole milk (360 ml). Milk should be heated to 108-110 degrees F. (If you don’t own a Thermapen, this would be a good time to get yourself one. You deserve it)

• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

• 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar

• 2 large eggs, beaten and room temperature

• 5 tablespoons (70 grams) butter, melted

• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

• 5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour (625 to 700 grams) (NOTE: You will only use 1 cup of flour to start)

For the filling and coating:

• About 1 cup Nutella or other similar hazelnut chocolate spread

• 1 stick (4 ounces) butter, melted

• 1 cup white sugar

• 3 tablespoons cinnamon

• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder

What You’ll Do:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook in place, whisk together the warm milk, yeast and sugar. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, the yeast should appear fluffier (many recipes use the phrase bubbly, but to me, it always just looks fluffier).

2. Add the beaten eggs, 5 tablespoons melted butter, 1 cup flour and salt and mix on low speed for a minute or so to incorporate the flour. Add another 4 cups of flour and beat on low speed until the flour is incorporated. Scrape down the sides, and continue to beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Scrape down those sides once again and knead for another 2 minutes on medium speed, until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

   Stick your finger into the dough. If it’s still very sticky, add a few tablespoons of dough at a time, scraping down the sides and blending on medium speed for about 30 seconds. Continue adding flour, a few tablespoons at a time, scraping down the sides, etc., until you touch the dough and it isn’t quite as sticky. I know that’s a rather vague direction, but if it’s not sticky at all, you’ve probably added too much flour. The many times I’ve made this recently, I’ve added between 3 tablespoons and nearly a cup of flour. Humidity, age of flour, etc. all play into it. Don’t fret. Just try. You’ll get it.

3. Lightly oil a large bowl. Turn the dough into the bowl and coat on all sides with the oil. Cover with an oiled piece of foil or cling film. Leave the dough to rise in a warmish space. When my kitchen is cold, I place the mixture in the oven with the oven light on.

4. Let the dough rise for 1 to 2 hours until it doubles in size.

5. When the dough has doubled in size, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Very generously butter a Bundt pan.

6. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured pastry board or smooth surface and pat the dough out into a large rectangle. The dough should be about 1-inch thick all around.

7. Cut the dough into 3 x 3-inch squares. This is not an exact science. Some can be larger, some smaller. Don’t sweat it. It will all be delicious.

8. Have your Nutella nearby in a small bowl with two small spoons—one for scooping, one for scraping. The melted butter should be in another bowl, and the sugar, cinnamon and cocoa in another.

9. Fill the dough: Take a piece of dough, flatten slightly and drop a dime-size portion of Nutella into the middle of the dough. (This will seem ridiculously tedious at first—all sticky and messy. You will get into a groove.) Gather up the edges of the dough with the Nutella tucked safely in the middle, pinch it closed and roll into a ball and set aside. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until all the dough is used.

10. Dip balls first in the butter mixture, let the excess drip off, then roll in the sugar mixture. Place each ball in the Bundt pan and repeat until the dough is used. Add the remaining butter to the sugar mixture and stir to combine. Pour this over the dough balls. (If you’ve been a bit too generous with the butter and sugar mixture while you were rolling the dough balls, you’ll have to make another batch of melted butter, sugar, cocoa and cinnamon.)

11. Cover the mixture with foil and let the mixture rest for 20 minutes. You should take this time to rest, too. You can do the dishes while it all bakes.

12. Remove the foil from the pan and bake for 35 to 50 minutes until the dough has risen and begun to turn a lush brown color. If it starts getting too lush a brown color before the dough is cooked, cover with aluminum foil.

13. Remove the oven and let cool on a rack for 15 minutes.

14. Place a plate over the Bundt pan and invert. Hopefully all the cake will pop out as one unit with nary a straggler behind in the pan. If not, reassemble as necessary. No one will notice or care.

15. If you are feeling especially extravagant, you could drizzle the whole thing with melted Nutella, or dust with powdered sugar. Enjoy.

Questions? Concerns? Let me know.